Rapper Kyprios performs at the Landing in Vancouver, April 2, 2012.

Photograph by: Stuart Davis
, Vancouver Sun

Kyprios

with Animal Nation

April 12 | FanClub

In the green room at the back of the FanClub, as staff come and go with costumes from the evening’s burlesque show, hip-hop artist Kyprios is waiting for a moment to psych himself up for the Vancouver launch of his latest LP, Midnight Sun.

He was prepared for this. Born David Coles in North Vancouver, the Sweatshop Union alumnus is used to facing an extra layer of pressure when he takes the stage in the city where his career kicked off.

“A hometown show’s pretty stressful,” he says. “I’ve got a lot of family here, and it’s about making sure that everyone gets in and everyone has a drink … The farthest thing from my mind is the show. … That’s generally what happens in Vancouver.”

He’s also keeping it mellow after a bout with bronchitis that he attributes to the rigours of touring. But despite having almost no voice for five days, he’s determined to get out on stage.

Midnight Sun is Kyprios’ fourth, or possibly fifth album — between side projects and collaborations, he’s kind of lost count. This time, rather than rapping over a beat, Kyprios chose to emulate a singer-songwriter, building the tracks from the ground up with the structure of pop songs.

The process gave the songs “more body, more breathability, more life than just a traditional two-bar sample that just goes around and around.”

He’s also tapped a long list of Vancouver talent to round out the sound, including D-Sisive, Moka Only and Elaine Lil Bit Shepherd.

He wrote the track The Game with Ryan Guldemond, from local indie rock act Mother Mother, who he calls “bar none, the best writer I’ve ever sat down with.”

“He’s so subversive with the technical aspect of writing,” Kyprios says. “We write this song together and I’m like, wow, that’s a really interesting, weird song. Then you break it down and you realize it’s a pop formula. He’s just subverted a pop formula into something I thought was very left of that.”

That, he says, is what’s magic about Mother Mother. “They’re able to write these pop songs that don’t look like pop songs. He throws so many curveballs in what he does. He’s just so brilliant — he’s a unique vessel to the music gods.”

Over the years, Kyprios has spent chunks of time soaking in the culture and vibrancy of New York and Toronto. Like many artists, he’s developed a love-hate relationship with the West Coast lifestyle.

“Vancouver’s expensive,” he says. “It can be a frustrating city, because I do find it lacks an identity culturally. … But we do have mountains and skiing and the Grouse Grind and biking and all the stuff people really love to do. The city’s known for that and that’s why tourists come here.”

In the end, it was a sense of belonging that won out. He now lives with his wife and small daughter in North Vancouver. It was a tough decision to come home, but one that he doesn’t regret.

“In Toronto I was transient,” he says. “I had some friends there, but my roots are here. When I came back from Toronto, I kind of had my hat in my hand. I’d gone through a bit of a rough patch, and I knew in order to get up and get going again, I needed to have the resolve of a community that I knew. Here, if I called in favours for records or whatever, I’d be able to do it. I had family here and everyone I recorded with for 20 years was here.”

These days he’s thinking about mentoring newer artists. He sings the praises of Juno-nominated Vancouver transplant SonReal and local Snak the Ripper. Whistler’s Animal Nation joined him on the month-long tour he capped off at FanClub.

But he’s got some words of wisdom for artists planning to follow in his footsteps — take care of yourself, because the show must go on.

“My whole career, I’ve never missed a show,” he says. “I’ve gone up onstage with food poisoning and thrown up. In Louisiana I had a bucket on stage. … I’ve fallen off stage a million times. I’ve tripped, fallen, hurt myself, never missed a show.”

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